The count of candidate exoplanets found by Kepler has now risen another 503 to 3,216, of which only 132 have been confirmed.
These new exoplanets were found before the telescope failed but the data for them is only now being released.
The delays in SpaceX’s commercial launch schedule appear caused by a series of problems testing the first stage’s upgraded engines.
The article also provides this updated scheduling information:
A successful test will be key for several of SpaceX’s future ambitions, not least their upcoming increase in launch frequency, with the next Falcon 9 – the debut of the v1.1 – set to loft Canada’s space weather satellite, CASSIOPE, out of Vandenberg Air Force Base. This mission has officially slipped to August, with the likelihood it will be re-targeted to September. Focus will then switch to Cape Canaveral, with two satellite missions, the first carrying SES-8, to be followed by the Thaicom 6 launch.
I had suspected the delays were related to the upgrades to Falcon 9. This article confirms this.
My heart bleeds: A Democratic Congressman thinks it “is simply not fair” to make his staffers subject to Obamacare like everyone else.
The problem it seems is that
Dozens of lawmakers and aides are so afraid that their health insurance premiums will skyrocket next year thanks to Obamacare that they are thinking about retiring early or just quitting. The fear: Government-subsidized premiums will disappear at the end of the year under a provision in the health care law that nudges aides and lawmakers onto the government health care exchanges, which could make their benefits exorbitantly expensive.
Well, ain’t that just too damn bad. As I say, my heart bleeds.
The draft budget of the House science committee gives commercial space a boost while nixing Obama’s asteroid mission.
The law is such an inconvenient thing: It appears that Homeland Security and Customs both train their officers to believe that pilots have “no right to refuse a search” of their planes.
To put it another way, these agencies think that they don’t need a warrant to search the private property of pilots.
Engineers in the Czech Republic have built a bicycle that can fly.
The demonstration does beg the question “Why a bike?”. Once those big, knobby tires are lifted off the ground, aren’t they rendered more or less moot? According to the project website, the central concept was to create a flying vehicle that could easily be ridden to a more suitable takeoff site and then be capable of a 3 – 5 minute flight. In order to offset the extra weight added by all the rotors, they could be used to help propel the bike along the ground, besides allowing it to fly.
Video below the fold.
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The sad state of science: “Self-confessed liar publishes more dubious stem-cell work.”
That’s an actual Nature headline. Worse, the publication that published the new papers — which were plagiarized from already retracted papers — is peer-reviewed, which illustrates how seriously they take that review process — not!
Coming soon to a blue state near you! Detroit announces that it will default on its debt today.
The City currently faces approximately $17 billion in total liabilities. Detroit is insolvent and cannot meet its financial obligations without a significant restructuring.
It is important to note that Detroit has been run exclusively by Democrats for about a half century. Thus, this bankruptcy is an entirely partisan event, supported by voters who blindly insisted on one-party rule, and never questioned the incompetence or corruption of that Democratic Party.
And please, don’t argue with me by mentioning examples where Republicans screwed up. They have their own lock on stupidity, corruption, and failure. The point here, however, is to recognize that the failure in Detroit, as well as all of the recent other cities that have gone bankrupt, is because of decades of liberal Democratic rule, where money got funneled to unionized city employees at the expense of the taxpayers, with no regard to cost or affordability.
And if you doubt me, read this history of Detroit’s last fifty years.
Why doctors are bailing out of health insurance.
And yes, Obamacare is a major reason, though not the entire reason. It is instead the worst symptom of an on-going philosophical failure that goes back decades.
Stonewalling: Not one tea party group has yet been contacted by the FBI, one month after the IRS scandal began.
Worse, the head of the FBI can’t even name the FBI person in charge of the investigation.
Republican Rep. Jim Jordan lit into Mueller for his lack of knowledge during a House judiciary committee hearing. “This is the most important issue in front of the country in the last six weeks, and you don’t know who the lead investigator is?” Jordan asked, sounding shocked.
“At this juncture, no I do not,” Mueller responded.
“Do you know if you’ve talked to any of the victims?” Jordan went on. “Have you talked to any of the groups that were targeted by their government? Have you met with any of the tea party groups since May 14, 2013?”
“I don’t know what the status of the interviews are by the team that’s on it,” Mueller said.
Reached for comment Thursday afternoon, the FBI’s Washington, D.C. press office transferred TheDC to a long-ringing phone line and eventually hung up.
I have embedded the video of this hearing testimony below the fold. Watch and you will know that the claims of “outrage” by Obama and Holder are utter crap.
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The law is such an inconvenient thing: An audit has revealed that in 2010 and 2011 more than 1,000 IRS employees misused government charge cards.
The key quote from the article is this conclusion from the audit:
The inspector general’s bottom line conclusion in this area was that the IRS is more tolerant of its own employees who misuse government charge cards than it is of American taxpayers who fail to pay their taxes in a timely manner.
“Of particular concern is the fact that the IRS ask taxpayers to voluntarily pay taxes owed in a timely manner and yet was more tolerant when its employees became delinquent and defaulted on outstanding payments, violated the terms of the Citibank contract, abused a Government-provided resource (travel funding), and compromised the integrity of the IRS.”
Some hints about SpaceShipTwo’s next powered test flight, as well as details about the first.
Finding out what’s in it: Under Obamacare it looks like health insurance will be unaffordable for most low wage workers.
I guess that’s why Obama and the Democrats officially named Obamacare the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”. Like most badly written government laws, it is achieving exactly the opposite of its intentions.
The world upside down: The Obama administration demands the right to snoop on American private communications, but it specifically forbids any spying in mosques.
Which might explain why this administration completely failed to catch the Boston marathon bombers, despite plenty of evidence that they were a threat.
No matter. They’ve got us covered. If anyone decides to criticize Obama they will be right on the case!
For those intereseted in listening to my most recent appearance on The Space Show on June 11, the podcast is available here. Discussion of the show can be found here.
China’s manned Shenzhou-10 capsule successfully completed an automated docking with its Tiengong-1 space station today.
They will spend 12 days on board the station, during which they will do, among other things, one manual docking test.
We’re here to help you: A researcher of fuel cells, manhandled and arrested because he used the wrong mailing labels in selling and shipping sodium to fund his research, was then prosecuted by the EPA because he wasn’t home to maintain his sodium supplies.
On May 27, 2004, federal agents in two black SUVs, waving assault rifles, forced Krister’s car off the road. Manhandling him as if he were a terrorist, they arrested, interrogated, and jailed him. For what? Putting the wrong shipping label—with the correct instructions, mind you—on a box of raw sodium that he sold on eBay.
A jury saw that it was an honest mistake and found Krister “not guilty.” But while Krister was on trial, sodium from his experiments sat in steel drums at an industrial warehouse. The Environmental Protection Agency learned of the additional sodium, determined that Krister had “abandoned” it, and charged him with a federal crime.
Although Krister’s expert witness testified that the sodium was stored properly, a jury found Krister guilty. He served 13 months in federal prison and eight more in a halfway house.
So, what did he do that was morally wrong? Nothing. Not that this matters to our lovely federal government. He did not obey their rules to the letter, even when they themselves made it impossible for him to do so. Thus, he must be destroyed.
An evening pause: The third movement of Richard Harvey’s Concerto Antico, guitar played by John Williams.
I think that few who listen will only listen once.
The Russian Progress freighter got a surprise today when it undocked from ISS: the rendezvous antenna that refused to deploy when needed after launch finally deployed.
